this is our last goodbye
by klrob
Summary: And I can't pretend to just be cool. I can't be your friend, so this is the end. / Or, when Phoebe and Regina finally fell apart.


"I'll see you later, Pheebs."

"Bye, Craig!" Phoebe smiled to herself and turned back to her locker. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Craig nod to Regina, but didn't think anything of it. She fixed her hair in the little mirror and closed her locker door.

"So Phoebe," Regina proclaimed, "how do _you_ know Craig?"

Phoebe tilted her head, confused as to why Regina actually cared about whom she talked to. "He's in my English class. He edits some of my papers. I didn't think you cared anymore about the guys I talked to."

Regina rolled her eyes and put on that fake grin that Phoebe just could not stand. "I don't. But you seemed pretty interested in him. Do you have a crush on Craig or something?"

"I mean… Maybe?"

The grin fell off of Regina's face and she got a mean look in her eye. The kind of look that you would see in a tiger's eyes right before it attacked its prey.

"Well, you need to stop. He just asked you if you were going to the football game tonight, right?"

"Yeah, but how did you—"

"You're not going. You aren't allowed to be interested in Craig Bentley," Regina announced.

"What? Regina, that's ridiculous. Why can't I have a crush on him?" asked Phoebe. She and Regina hadn't been too close for a long time now, ever since Regina started hanging out with Lacey and Sarita. But what gave her the right to tell Phoebe who she could and could not date?

"Don't worry about it. But you can't have him, got it?" Regina pranced away, leaving Phoebe to stare at her back. She rolled her eyes at the other girl and decided to ignore the crap that came out of her mouth. Regina could do what she wanted, but Phoebe really liked Craig.

Phoebe waved to Craig as she walked onto the field from the bleachers. He spotted her but ducked his head quickly, allowing him to disappear into the crowd. Phoebe stopped in her tracks, wondering to herself what was going on. She saw Regina smirk at her, then wander through the crowd. Now Regina and Craig were somewhere in the crowd together, but Phoebe couldn't spot either of them. She went back and sat on the bleachers, waiting until the crowd on the field thinned out.

It took several minutes, but a substantial amount of people had left. Probably to go find the nearest victory party to celebrate. Regina caught Phoebe's eye and the young redhead waved with her saccharine sweet smile. Phoebe shook her off, trying to escape the prickly feeling starting at the back of her neck. She finally caught up to Craig, who was talking to some other people. Phoebe tapped him on his shoulder and whispered, "Can we talk?"

Craig said his goodbyes and the two moved over to a more isolated spot. Phoebe smiled brightly at Craig and broke the silence. "So, congratulations tonight. You played a great game."

Craig ran his fingers through his stubbly hair and grimaced to himself. "Listen, Pheebs, Regina told me about your…"

Phoebe's heart caught in her chest. "About my what?"

"Your _disease."_

"My _what_?" Phoebe's mouth dropped open.

"You know. The STD you gave her brother? Regina said it was really bad—"

"Wait a second. I don't have any diseases. And I don't know what brother Regina is talking about, because she has two sisters," Phoebe rushed to explain.

Craig sighed. "She said you would make excuses, but there were other people who said you have something too. You're really nice and probably a great person, but I'd rather not be around someone who could give me something."

"I don't have an STD. Regina's making this up!" Phoebe said.

"Look, I'm really sorry, but I just can't, Pheebs. I'm sorry," apologized Craig. He practically sprinted away from the young woman, leaving her alone.

Phoebe could only stand in shock before realizing she had begun to cry. She wiped away the hot tears from her face before anyone noticed and walked to her car in the parking lot. Sitting on the hood of her convertible, Regina smirked at Phoebe's obvious heartbreak. Phoebe stormed over to Regina and shoved her, almost pushing her off of the car.

"What the hell did you say to Craig?" demanded Phoebe.

Regina glared at her the unhappy woman and wiped off the imaginary dust from her jeans. "I just told him the truth."

"That I got an STD from your nonexistent brother? What is the matter with you?"

"You know I liked Craig 7 months ago. You can't have him, I have dibs," claimed Regina.

"_Dibs?_ You're calling dibs on a guy you liked for a week 7 months ago? How immature can you be?"

"Actually, I liked him for 3 and a half weeks. You don't get to have him. Don't you know anything about the girl code?"

"What girl code? That only applies if we're friends, which we are so obviously not. You're telling people that I have an STD and I am still very much a virgin!"

Regina scoffed and crossed her arms. "Please. We all know what happened with you and Brian two months ago."

People around the two girls had begun to pay attention to what was going on, starting to gather around them. Phoebe noticed all of the people and blushed at Regina's comment.

"We didn't have sex though," Phoebe hissed, "We only went to third base."

Regina laughed out loud. "Exactly! You shouldn't get to have Craig because you probably got your dirty STD from being around Brian."

Phoebe took several deep breaths to keep herself from breaking down in front of the crowd forming around them. "I don't have an STD. I would know."

"Obviously you don't since you can't even smell yourself. Here's a heads up: you smell like a dead fish," cracked Regina. The crowd began laughing at Phoebe, causing her to fall back. She ran toward her car and rushed to get out of the parking lot. She waited until she got home to finally let herself break down into tears.

Two days later, after the whole debacle in the parking lot, Phoebe finally showed up back at school. Her parents had known her charade was fake, but they didn't call Phoebe out on it, knowing something bigger had happened. Phoebe knew this wasn't the way to deny the STD claims, but she just couldn't face all of the people. She made it through the day, although whenever she would walk in the hallways, people would make faces at her or not walk close to her. Phoebe knew she didn't smell like a fish, but couldn't bring herself to cause another scene in front of the entire school this time.

She finally made it to her car at the end of the day ready to cry again, when she saw Regina walking to her car. She glared at the redhead, angered at how happy Regina was when Phoebe had spent the entire day so miserable. Phoebe was still a virgin and she was almost sure that Regina wasn't. She just needed to do something about this, since Regina was surely not going to apologize for accusing her of being so _dirty._ Phoebe drove back to her house with intent.

She ran upstairs to her room, pulling her entire room apart until she found exactly what she was looking for in her hidden nook. When Regina had finally gotten her car a couple months ago, back when they were still close, Phoebe had received the spare set of keys because Regina lost everything. Regina never remembered that she had done this but Phoebe wasn't complaining now.

Phoebe got back into her car and drove over to the supermarket. She went up to Sal, the local butcher, and asked for an order of fish. Phoebe got back into her car with the disgusting, slimy dead creature and went home. She put the fish in her freezer, needing to wait until she had the cover of the night to do what she planned.

Phoebe did her homework, ate dinner, caught up with her parents, did everything she was supposed to. Then it was finally 11:00, and she jumped up from her cozy reading spot. She grabbed both sets of keys, the fish from the freezer, snuck out quietly from her house without waking up her mother or father, and drove to Regina's house. She'd been here millions of times as an invited guest, but she needed to get her revenge. She quietly opened Regina's passenger door, shoved the fish under the piles of stuff lying around along with the spare set of keys, and ran back to her car. Phoebe sighed a deep breath of relief and drove back home.

Almost two weeks later, Regina came storming up to Phoebe as she got out of her car before school. She had the disgusting, decomposing fish in her one hand, and the spare set of keys in the other.

"What the _hell_ is this, you little skank?" screeched Regina.

Phoebe smirked and closed her car door. "I don't know what you're talking about. It looks like a decomposing fish and some keys. Are you blind or something?"

Regina screamed into the air. "I know you did this, Phoebe! My car has smelled like a rotting corpse threw up for weeks now!" Regina took a deep breath and smiled. "And you're going to clean my car."

Phoebe raised her eyebrows in shock. "Excuse me?"

Regina smiled even more viciously, as if she might even eat Phoebe. "You heard me. You're going to clean my car and get that disgusting smell out."

"I'm sorry, why? Do you have any proof it was me?"

Regina's smile slid off her face and the fish and keys dropped from her hands with a splat onto the ground. "No… But you're the only one with a spare set of keys!"

Phoebe smiled. "And you're the only person who knows." Phoebe gathered her things and walked into school with the biggest smile on her face, head held high as she finally left Regina in the dust for the first time.

But then it was a year later, and everyone still remembered Regina and Phoebe had an awfully _public_ falling out. The day after Regina's death, they came back to school and Phoebe could hear the whispers, accusing her of killing one of her oldest friends. Phoebe had gotten that strange call the night before around 3 in the morning, but she had blown it off, thinking someone had the wrong number. But what the caller had said still reverberated in her mind.

"_I did it. Regina is finally out of our lives. We don't have to worry about her anymore, or about the Desai kid revealing what happened."_


End file.
